Heavy Coffee Drinkers Want Coffee A Lot More Than They Actually Like It

By Emma Young If I had to choose between giving up alcohol or coffee, it would have to be alcohol. I just love coffee too much… But do I, really? Or do I just want it, which is different? Despite being the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world, there’s ongoing debate about just how addictive caffeine is. It does share some of the criteria for dependence: regular users who skip their morning cup will often report withdrawal symptoms, such as headaches, for example. “Caffeine use disorder” is even being discussed for potential inclusion in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But is it really addictive in the same fundamental way as a harder drug like cocaine? A new paper published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology suggests that it is. Nicolas Koranyi at the University of Jena, Germany, and colleagues found that heavy coffee drinkers want coffee a lot more than they like it. The implication is that they drink it mostly or entirely to feed their addiction, rather than for pleasure. Typically, as someone develops an ever stronger dependence on an addictive drug, they come to want it more, as brain networks involved in motivation become more sensitised, but to like it less. The team figured that this was, then, a useful framework in which to explore attitudes to coffee. It’s not reasonable, though, just to ask people how much they want or like coffee, the team decided. They might easily confuse the two, ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Drugs Source Type: blogs